I wear a lot of hats. But the biggest one is that of being a mom. My children are ages 5 and 7 and are as different from one another as I could imagine! Our daughter came along first and then our son. Things have been tricky lately. Okay, most of motherhood can be tricky at times! Nothing will keep you praying for wisdom or feeling so humbled as navigating your days as a mom. Just this morning we had yet another scene where I was all too aware of my need for wisdom while also experiencing keen disappointment in the three of us. I thought that I had properly prepped the kids for something but it just did not go as planned. Kylee became shy in the situation which translated as "snottiness". Sometimes she acts that way and has way too much attitude. Nathan went against the instructions to "not lay down or tug at people. Just stand still and be pleasant". Hmm... I am mostly over it now but still. What to do? Motherhood.
Back to the wearing of hats... in addition to the whole mom thing and being a homeschooling mom of a kindergartner and a 2nd grader, I have my own business as a health coach, I lead women's ministry at our church and as of this school year, I began tutoring for our Classical Conversations homeschooling campus. This is our first year with CC and that group meets on Fridays. I have been leading my son's classroom there.
Something unexpected was added to our schedule in late August/early September. We discovered how our daughter is in need of some intense vision therapy to help with her tracking skills. It is imperative that we work hard with this and get on top of the challenge so that she can get up to "average" ability in order to really progress with her grade-level academics, especially as this relates closely to reading beyond two lines on a page. This situation has added an hour a day of at-home therapy, five days per week. We also have extra appointments with her OT and our vision specialist. This addition to the schedule has meant that there is a time each day where I need to keep our son at arm's length in order to focus with her on her therapy. Then I spend extra time with him afterward in an attempt to keep the emotional balance around here. It has been hard! At times I have wondered what I was thinking, that I was going to balance the wearing of all these varied hats? Should I have said "no" to something at the outset? Then I remember that the vision therapy came into the mix a bit later, after I had assumed these other responsibilities. Between the extra time with both of the kids, this winds up adding 90 minutes or so to our days. Ouch. This has really cut back on the amount of time that I have to make daytime phone calls in relation to my roles of leading my coaching team, working with my own customers and also leading the women's ministry at church. Instead, I wind up with a fairly substantial to-do list most evenings and this cuts down on the quality time that I invest with my husband. You can get by with doing that for a fixed season, but not long term.
Our family budget relies on my income. So I do need to work and am enjoying my coaching business of helping others to make healthy changes. I had contracted to tutor at CC for this school year. Much to my surprise, this became a very difficult area in my life. Nathan really, really struggled with having me teach him within a group. We tried it for 6 weeks with all sorts of adjustments and attempted creativity. He has been doing so well working one-on-one at home and I have loved seeing the spark of understanding and his academic growth. It is exciting! He does fine in classroom settings with other people. But put the two of us together in an academic classroom, with me teaching him amongst a group of other kids... YIKES! Picture a scene that is just toxic for everyone involved. He has literally become the most angst-ridden, intense, angry, shut-down, difficult little boy in ways that I had never seen as being in him prior to all of this. So this has been heart-wrenching, mortifying, frustrating and perplexing to me as a mom. After much thought, prayer and discussion, we made the decision for the two of us to withdraw from CC. Our daughter Kylee is having a wonderful experience and she will continue. Nathan and I will spend some quality one-on-one time on our Friday mornings. I think that this is going to be better for everyone involved. Today was the first of our "new Fridays".
This whole thing has been quite a journey. Talk about a variety of emotions! Sometimes it is so hard to know which way to take? Is it time to push harder and really power through something? Or is it time to step back, simplify and give it all some time? I have to admit that it is helpful for my household for me to free up a few hours a week that I had been spending on prep work as a new tutor. This also frees up a ton of space in my own head. Phew! There have been a few too many tabs open there! Time for a big exhale on that front. I am praying that we will find the keys to get to the heart of the matter with our son. I know that it is not just about him acting like a "good boy", although this sure would simplify things as a mom! I want him to really grow into who God has created him to be. Even if this is not the cookie cutter personality that would perhaps be a bit more convenient for all of us? :) He is busy! And is not a "traditional" learner. He is tender and a hurricane all at once. He makes me laugh and also makes me want to disappear from public view with some of his antics. I realize that a lot of this goes hand-in-hand with being the mom of a little boy!
I have also had to work through the emotions of feeling like a "failure" for one of the first times in my life. This is just not my usual! I fall more in the camp of optimistic over-achievers. But in this case, I felt as though I was failing to get Nathan on-board, pleasant and participating within the class. He was just plain not being a good listener in addition to many other things that came into play. We are really, really focusing on some things with him right now. Plus I also felt as though I had "failed" professionally as a tutor. I was not on top of doing the best by the rest of the class while trying to split my attention between them and my own child. Our CC director and some close friends who have walked with me through this have been a big encouragement to me. I probably would have continued trying to "do it all" if this area had not become so problematic that it was obvious that a change was needed. So, here we are with a change.
One of the biggest recent life lessons that I have learned came at a moment when Nathan was saying, "Mom! Look! LOOOOKKKK! You have to look! Look now!" Aaaaahhhh! (internally from me!) We hear this so often throughout our days. The whole "look!" thing. Sometimes I literally have my hands into something (raw chicken?) where I can not stop and go look. Other times I am mentally engaged in something and just want to finish it. And I am not saying that we have to constantly cater to our kids with all of their requests. But on this one day, Nathan blurted out something that was THE DEFINING MOMENT for me. "Mom! I ask you to look and you never look. And then I am sad. Then I become angry. It is because you never look." As he said this, his voice and body language increased in intensity to where he went sprinting out of the room, blinded by his tears. I was cut to the quick. It was not true that I "never look". I do look. Maybe 1/3 of the time?? Since that day, I am working hard to change that moment by moment. We all need to just take it down a few levels around here. I want everyone in our home to feel seen, appreciated and loved. The kids have their own love languages. My daughter is all about the gifts and acts of service. We have come to see how much my son values quality time and physical touch. It is time to get back to square one as a family and really invest in one another.
I am not sure what this next chapter will bring, but I am looking forward to some Friday morning adventures with my 5 year old son. Today we went to the Zoo and moved at his pace and spent however much (or little!) time he was interested in exploring with each of the animals. Wilbur the pig and the alpaca/llama corral were with him today! I will also be praying for wisdom and endurance as right now I am the mom who hears "You have your hands full" more often than I would think should be necessary with him at this age? I guess that it is pretty obvious that my hands are literally full with a noisy, flailing 5 year old and this is the way that others think to comment on the scene which we sometimes create? We have let things slip for too long and now it is just time to really focus from this point forward. This means that we are not always able to go with the flow. We have to stop and have some teachable moments and hope to get everyone here back on track!
